Alert commuters using Scotland’s railway stations may this week have received a “newspaper” from the official No campaign containing a splendid crossword and a recipe for raspberry brownies, amongst some political rubbish.

We haven’t tried it ourselves, but we hope the recipe was a bit less inaccurate than the political sections, or a lot of people might die of food poisoning.

1. “We get the best of both worlds. A powerful Scottish Parliament with power over things like schools, hospitals, police and transport and we get the strength and security of being part of the UK, one of the biggest economies in the world.”

Well, yes, if by “biggest” you mean “most bankrupt and indebted”. And if by “powerful” you mean “hamstrung by having its budget set and all its most important decisions taken by a government Scots rejected overwhelmingly”. Otherwise, spot-on.

2. “In Scotland we have £1,200 more per person in public spending than the UK average. Most of this extra money is spent by the Scottish Parliament on priorities we decide like the NHS or our schools.”

Of course, to pay for that £1,200 in “extra” spending we cough up £1,700 more each than the UK average. But it’s nice of them to give us back 70% of our own money.

Most of the other £500 Scotland subsidises the UK with is of course frittered away by Westminster on priorities we DON’T decide, like weapons of mass destruction, high-speed rail that doesn’t come near Scotland, improving already-lavish London public transport, the Olympics, aircraft carriers that don’t have any aircraft to carry, and invading countries full of brown people and shooting them.

3. “Scotland is a country of 5 million but we get to sell our goods and services to a home market of 60 million customers. The SNP Government’s own figures show that Scots firms sell twice as much to the rest of the UK as we do to the rest of the world combined!”

Scotland is a country of 5 million but we get to sell our goods and services to a European common market of over 500 million customers. As long as we don’t get dragged out of the EU by Westminster, that is.

And independence won’t stop Scottish businesses selling goods and services to the rest of the UK, any more than we’re currently prevented from selling them to France or Germany or India or Japan or the USA. Obviously.

4. “As part of the UK we are on the UN security council and we have 270 embassies and consulates around the world helping Scots companies and travellers. We are one of the big nations setting the agenda in the EU. And the UK has been voted the most culturally influential nation on earth.”

5. “The UK armed forces are the best trained in the world. As part of the UK we are protected by an army, navy and air force far bigger than we could pay for on our own. We have one of the biggest aid programmes, helping disasters and the poorest parts of the world.”

6. “Scottish licence fee payers contribute about £300 million but, by clubbing together with the rest of the UK, we get about £3.6 billion worth of programmes. Viewers outside the UK have to pay for things like iPlayer and other small countries pay a far higher licence fee for fewer programmes.”

We currently pay the 8th-highest licence fee in Europe, and many other small countries (Ireland, Slovenia, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic) pay less and yet still get access to those precious BBC programmes.

7. “With more universities in the world’s top 200 per head than any other country on the planet Scotland’s universities are thriving as part of the UK. Our scientists and inventors are backed by investment from the rest of the UK.”

8. “Scotland has massive green energy potential. Today the cost of building wind and wave generators is shared across the energy bills of 26 million households. If the cost of this had to be paid for by just 2.4 million Scottish energy bills we would have to choose between green jobs or much higher energy bills.”

9. “We make decisions here in the Scottish Parliament about our NHS but we also benefit from cost-free, hassle-free access to the lifesaving specialist treatment we need anywhere in the UK NHS.”

…which would continue to happen exactly as it does now, since NHS Scotland is already a separate organisation from the NHS in the rest of the UK.

10. “Today the UK pound is our currency and our mortgages are backed by the Bank of England. If we leave the UK and have to join the Euro or set up a new currency from scratch it would cost us with higher mortgage bills and will make it more costly to trade with the rest of the UK.”

That’s nice. But Scotland will be keeping the pound, so what’s your point, caller? And anyone who tries to suggest Scotland COULD join the Euro – never mind be COMPELLED to do so – ought to be directed to the convergence criteria that a country must fulfil before joining the Eurozone. It’s not happening.

As for mortgage rates, those are on the way up whether we’re in the UK or not. (And we note that for some inexplicable reason “Better Together” has stopped going on about how great UK pensions are recently.)

With all due respect, we humbly suggest that in future, the No camp might save itself some embarrassment by getting us to give its releases the once-over BEFORE they give them to the Scottish public, not after.

As a matter of interest ,how much does it cost to put up a billboard? I seem to remember someone erecting one ,inscribed with the immortal words ” Wanted! an honest lawyer in the West Coast of Scotland”
I was thinking of one with a few weel kent faces like Cameron ,Osborne ,Miliband ,Clegg and Farage all smiling down on Scottish citizens at different venues .
And another with some more of the motley crew.
I feel it would be persuasive for those yet to make up their minds as to where Scotland is headed .

Blair McShameless tried the No 1 at the end of Blethering, in his ‘appeal’ that Scotland was part of one of the biggest economies in the world – of course McShameless got away with it as he is spouting his guff on the BBC. The reality is has been illustrated

Only ignoring the fact that the UK is propped up with Scottish revenues. Scotland goes and what’s left is a complete basket case (and I did shout this at the radio, but don’t think they heard me)

As ex Royal Navy myself I can categorically state, as per the opinion of the staff of FOST (Flag Officer Sea Training) Devonport, that the best trained Navy in world is His Majesties Royal Netherlands Navy. Better trained, highly qualified, well motivated matelots. And well equipped.

That’s Netherlands 4 – 0 UK in my view.

Can’t speak for the Army or the RAF, but so far as the Royal Navy is concerned; naw, we are not the best trained in the world, so say the people who assess half of Europe’s NATO member navies for competence.

Our military should aspire to match those of the best services around the world for training and skills in their chosen categories. As Navies go equipped like Norway and trained like the Dutch is what I would call a decent start.

The 7 million people of London receive more spending per person, but on point 2 – That £1200 above the UK average (of our money they return to us). What is it spent on precisely?
More Police and teachers per capita perhaps, or does it include that proportion of the defence budget that is added to our account but which is spent in England?

“And independence won’t stop Scottish businesses selling goods and services to the rest of the UK, any more than we’re currently prevented from selling them to France or Germany or India or Japan or the USA. Obviously.”

This is oversimplifying quite an important point. The issue isn’t whether we can or can’t trade with the rest of the UK/EU, it’s removing technical barriers. At present the EU’s single market has removed the majority of technical barriers in some areas, but in other areas (particularly services) this isn’t the case. In the UK in contrast we do genuinely have a single market in services.

In order to maintain that situation post-independence we’d therefore need to co-operate at the UK level. Co-operating at the EU level alone isn’t going to maintain the same situation (otherwise we’d already have a single market for services across Europe). That implies some form of joint-decision making, or simply adopting the regulations and practices which govern the service sector in the rest of the UK (though without having any say over what they are).

I have no doubt that everything you say is correct but the facts remain. The free, give-away newspaper is being believed by many. Saying ‘Naw its no!’ doesn’t change that. That’s the problem with ‘Scottish’ Politics.

Leaflets were being handed out at the entrance to my local Tesco yesterday. The first, headed Foodbank, said together we can help feed people in need and build a stronger neighbourhood. Simply donate items from this list and Tesco will add 30% to the total given. Items listed included milk, sugar, teabags and instant mash potato. A second leaflet said today we are running particularly low on the following items. Then listed were UHT milk, tinned veg, rice, tinned meat, tea and others. I was assured that donations would go to local people. Meanwhile a collection of well-off people were feted and fed at Downing Street for no apparent reason. Food was cooked by Tom Kitchin. I don’t suppose he used a lot of instant mash. Maybe I’m just too poor, too wee and too stupid to understand.

Is there any scope to reprint these BT allegations, with your point-for-point refutations on the reverse side, and distribute in the same places? With some message like “We DO have the answers, actually”

“These will involve some relatively straightforward, technical EU treaty changes. But since no other EU member state will be directly affected, there is every reason to think that they could be approved rapidly and without ratifying referendums.”

And….

“Not too much notice should be taken either of the muffled warning from the rightwing government in Madrid that it might veto Scotland’s EU membership. The difference with Catalonia’s claim to independence within the EU from Scotland’s is that the Spanish constitution gives a veto to other Spanish regions over Catalan decisions – a potentially dangerous option for Spain itself. Meanwhile the Scottish people can vote knowing that no one has the power to deprive them of their EU citizens’ rights if they decide to opt for independence.”

In the simplest sense, there are two different things which can prevent a business from trading freely within another territory. There are explicit tariffs (i.e. you literally have to pay a fee to sell your goods/services in that territory) but there are also technical barriers. A technical barrier would be, for instance, if you sold a food product and it so happened that one of the ingredients of your product had been banned in another country on health grounds. In other words, nobody has explicitly decided you can’t sell your product in that country, but in practice there’s a barrier to you doing so – even if you manufacture it differently with the ingredient removed that incurs extra costs and creates an obstacle to free trade. Eliminating these technical barriers is the purpose of the EU’s single market – the idea being that if we remove all of these inconsistencies then we can trade freely with one another.

The problem is that achieving this in practice is harder than it sounds. In the case of service industries there are a number of obstacles that prevent a British business, for instance, from offering their services on a level playing field with services within another EU country. Some examples are that there are different rules around licensing in EU countries for things like Accountants and Engineering Consultancies – e.g. you might have to be a member of a professional body to run businesses in these areas in certain countries, while in others you don’t. In the UK we have a single system for dealing with these issues in almost all cases – i.e. there are no substantial technical barriers, so it’s deemed a “single market”.

Anyway, like most strategies this one by BT would have been drawn up months ago without knowing how extensive the White Paper was going to be (I’m sure they thought it was going to be two sides of foolscap). If they were serious about their little newspaper as a persuasional tool then they would have printed half a million of them and got the newly privatised Royal Mail to deliver through letterboxes!

The White Paper has gazumped them big time. They know they’re now fast running out time to mount serious grown-up challenge, to persuade the population to back a NO vote rather than convincing themselves in their heads that spouting lies and smear will do the business for the union. If they haven’t done nothing new by April then Independence is there for the taking. Over to the YES campaign to ramp it up and grasp the thistle (and that means all of us here too).

Number 5. “The UK armed forces are the best trained in the world. As part of the UK we are protected by an army, navy and air force far bigger than we could pay for on our own. We have one of the biggest aid programmes, helping disasters and the poorest parts of the world.”

Hmm, that’s certainly nice to know, that we are “protected” by the UK armed forces. Oh wait a minute, how did this “protection” actually do in the Winter of 2012 when we had a foreign, sorry for using the foreign word here :P:, navy (Russian) parking itself in the Moray Firth for a few days break from a severe storm?
Oh that’s right the UK “protection” of Scotland was, how can I put it,……..none existent!
The Navy was so low on ships that they had to recommission a decommissioned Type 42 destroyer, H.M.S,. York, sitting tied up in Plymouth, and send her up, eventually, to the Moray Firth where, upon arrival, surprise surprise, no not Cilla Black pottering about in a dinghy, the Russian fleet had disappeared!
In the interim period of the Russian fleet arriving in the Moray Firth and leaving there had been absolutely no surveillance carried out on the fleet. I wonder why that is, after all doesn’t the U.K. have the fourth largest defence budget?
Oh wait a minute I remember now, we have no surveillance aircraft. That very nice man in 10 Downing Street scrapped them all in 2010 when he came to power!
Doesn’t it make you proud to know that we are so well protected by the the country with the fourth largest defence budget?
I wonder how well protected we could be in a country that did not have the fourth largest defence budget. One thing is certain, we’d have been able to maintain a proper surveillance of the Russian fleet whist it lay at anchor in the Moray Firth! 😆

This is brilliant stuff, Stu. Your best fabricated BT material so far! I’m sure even Better Together themselves couldn’t have come up with such a propagandist crossword. The gossip page is also great addition, and you’ve really taken the piss by making the language so elementary that even Daily Sport readers will be able to understand it. And a recipe!! For Brownies!! Great work!!

If I were you, I would have inserted a few more BT logo’s, and then I’d hand it out FOR REAL!! At really busy locations… like transport hubs!! Just imagine the backlash from the fat man at Better Together…

I remember the big stooshie at the time about the Russians doing their “illegal” rubbish dumping. I assumed it was the locals who were watching cause it certainly wasn’t the military!
The point I was trying to make, and obviously failed :lol:, was that we had no UK surveillance of the fleet. The only “surveillance” we had was carried out by the locals. I’m not certain but I don’t think they constitute part of the UK armed forces. 😆
I think the fact that the locals were able to do what the country with fourth largest defence spending could not do says just about all that needs to be said with regards to the Better Together Muppets claiming we are best “protected” by being part of the UK! 😆

That crossword seems rather confused….one clue references UK as a country. another references Scotland as a small country. I wasnt aware the UK was a country. Is someone called a Uk’er?

The clue about ‘Salmond’ being someone not telling the truth sums it up, petty vindictiveness hiding under the coward veil of “its only banter”. The use of Burns names Im sure would also have our national Poet wanting to deliver a good kicking to such a shower of rogues.

@handclapping – That’s probably it, be I do have to ask, where are we going to be going? I’ve read most of the White Paper, and there’s no mention of towing Scotland further into the Atlantic anywhere!

You’d think they’d take protecting the waters round Scotland a bit more seriously, seein’ as how their most expensive hardware is parked in the Clyde. But no, a Russian carrier group no less, had the stop watches oot checkin’ response times.

Good article Dougie, dispelling the usual biased myths projected by project feartie, unfortunately punters not in the know might actually believe, some if not all of BT’s codswallop.

I for one think that, attacking BT constantly like Wee Nicola did on Wednesday against the Secretary f Portsmouth Carmichael, is the way forward.

YES and the SNP should be constantly saying not to Scottish political leaders but too Alistair Darling and other Westminster reps, whats your plan for Scotland, wheres your investment for Scotland, wheres the paperwork for Scottish powers, what about Barnett being slashed etc put them on the backfoot like wee Nicola did.

Finnzz – “My daughters year have been involved in ‘referendum’ projects and viewed a couple of televised debates including the Sturgeon/Carmichael oneAfterwards they discussed the two debates and somehow I was not surprised to hear that the teacher had said that the BT argument contained more facts…”

Finnzz, as DD says I would complain in the strongest possible terms to the school about that teacher. I think I would also go further and challenge said teacher to a “live” debate in the class room with your daughter’s class as the audience and see how the teacher’s idea of “more facts” stacks up against reality. :P:

It’s simply not true to say that research funding in the UK doesn’t recognise borders. You have to be at an eligible (i.e. British) institution to receive the vast majority of funding from research councils like the ESRC. What is the case is that within the UK grants go to the best projects – whether they’re in Scotland, England, or wherever. What you’ve done here is post a quote that’s discussing collaborating internationally with other researchers abroad, which is a completely different issue.

The issue of whether we’d continue to have joint shared research funding across the UK as an independent country is up for debate. There are some good arguments for doing precisely that, but that doesn’t mean it will happen. Given that it would imply transfers between independent countries it would presumably also have to include an adjustment mechanism.

Renewables are tricky since they are very expensive compared to other existing energy sources that also have the benefit of being reliable but emit carbon.

So it’s a gamble that countries will indeed decide to go for much more expensive energy in order to cut emissions. I know governments are promising to do that (with some ominous noises coming from the UK govt), but when it comes to the crunch, making everyone poorer by paying for expensive, intermittent energy sources is quite a difficult proposition for politicians when money is tight.

I think it is more likely that competitive clean energy technologies are developed than that politicians decide to save the planet while also making their electorates poorer and their industry uncompetitive. The problem with that is those technologies will render existing built renewables pointless.

I’d love to believe the renewables story, I really would, like sometimes I think it’d be nice to believe in God, but it is not very plausible,

On the issue of energy bills not going up because green will be paid from from taxes. This just means that the renewable subsidy costs are distributed differently over the same people.

Renewables are only a viable proposition if we can use them to harvest that subsidy cash from other countries. Without that, they’re just a pricey and unreliable money sink.

BoJo in the Evening Times today, spouting his usual BS, saying Thatcher would have sorted Salmond out in an instant, BoJo then criticises Salmonds Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz, BoJo then finishes off with saying that an automatic knighthood should be given to the top one percent who pay 30% tax of Britains income tax.

Another horses arse is David Clegg of the gutter rag the Daily (drivel) Record, who pens a three quarter page devoted to attacking Alex Salmond and his stance on EU membership,and independence.

Astonishingly a few pages on in this very poor excuse of a tabloid, and I use the term loosely, the Daily (drivel) Record, then has the audacity in its Record View column, to state “The Daily Record,desperately wants a fair and open debate on independence”.

The lies spewed by this Trinity Mirror Group gutter rag is beyond contemptable, as the sorry excuse for journalist at the Daily (drivel) Record, are kowtowing to there masters at One Canada Square Canary Wharf London.

Where is the note of the £1.2trillion debt. The ‘bedroom tax’ . The wasted Oil revenue. The lies. The more recent idealogical attack on the vulnerable. Boris Johnston shameful statements. The list is endless.

Finzz, teachers have to be neutral on two counts – firstly, they should abide by the guidelines issued by Education Scotland earlier this yea and secondly, they must be neutral because they are council employees.

However, having once been a teacher, I’d say that you need to know a wee bit more about the context in which the teacher made the remark, as it’s not uncommon for pupils to quote you out of context.

Renewables over time are the cheapest source of energy. Tridal, Hydro water are the cheapest form of energy, and have been for fifty years. So is coal by developing CC. Wind, solar and wave can be the same. Nuclear is the most costly and dangerous. Cost £Billions. Nuclear Plants in Finland/France are years (7) over budget and overprice, even without decomissioning and storage costs,

naebd: “I think it is more likely that competitive clean energy technologies are developed than that politicians decide to save the planet while also making their electorates poorer and their industry uncompetitive. The problem with that is those technologies will render existing built renewables pointless.”

Not quite sure what you mean by “clean energy technologies” – you mean stuff like carbon-capture coal and the likes? To be honest, I think the biggest problem with renewable energy is it’s being sold as a solution to environmental problems, when it should really be getting sold as a solution to finite fuel sources. For example, it doesn’t matter how clean the technology for converting coal into energy is if there’s no coal left to do it with – which is what pisses me off when folk call nuclear energy “renewable”, since it’s just another form of fossil fuel.

o/t apologies. I see in the herald they are discussing the letter Alex Salmond used in Parliament that wasn’t directly addressed to him. Does anyone think there’s a lot of mileage left in the úntrustworthy Salmond’approach that the BT and MSM are adopting? Also, where can I find the video of what he actually said in parliament, or transcript? Did he say the letter was to him? Finally, I notice Jezerna regularly commenting on such stories in the Herald. I think it was Ginger Dug that discussed forensic linguistics demonstrating that she is not who she says she is. I’m no expert on this, but the writing style is that of a man, if my wife’s Phd in Gender linguistics is of any help, though her language of study wasn’t English, but rather Russian translation to English, so not 100% sure on that. Also, fairly clear he is not a second language user of English living in a foreign country, or if he is, he spends a lot of time with English speakers.

the comment from greatbaldo re the spanish veto was explained to me this morning. being an ex fisherman i know one reason he wouldn’t want us as an independent member, westminster wouldn’t be able to give his country the free access to our waters that they’ve enjoyed for decades while breaking every rule in their own book in the process. as anyone who has ever visited spain or portugal will know if they’ve sampled seafood or seen it for sale in a market. their boats land undersize fish caught in Scottish waters that would see you or i being jailed and fined 10’s of thousands of £ with all gear confiscated. that was my theory but another was put to me by my daughter who turned 18 just two weeks ago, the catalan question, support Scotland as an independent country and EU member opens a whole can of worms at home.
i’ve hunners more points to make but i’ll leave them to my 1000 word posts on my FB page every time you post something that pops up on it. all my FBF are getting tired of my rants but if i sway just one person then i’ll post a million words, the buggers will just have to read them or delete me.

@Jeannie
“The suggestion of offering a debate sounds like a good idea.”

I’ve been listening to some of her friends opinions, being careful not to lecture to them myself, and the general consensus appears to be to vote no based on some very flimsy arguments. The Ellon Academy leaflet is not an isolated case of misinformation being bandied around schools.

Certainly an organised debate between the two sides in front of school would allow a more balanced and truthful picture to be presented.

In terms of renewables, can anyone explain why all large water reservoirs cannot be adapted to produce electricity? You have a substantial volume of water flow and many are sited close to large populations?

Don’t we have to be more imaginative and de-centralised in our thinking to make renewables work best?

Naebd
You mentioned intermittent green energy, presume you are talking about Wind,
The plan is to use wind power to pump water up the hill and then it can be released when there is demand. the First Minister said that he wanted a connector to Norway so that we could use there extensive Hydro facilities. In the meantime they will utilise as much as the Scottish Hydro plant as possible. The cost of the technology of wind turbines is coming down all the time, they and Tidal/Wave are the future. How anybody could propose we use Nuclear after Japan needs there head looking at. There was an story on Russian Television news last week that Russian reporters had analysed the radiation as a Japanese town of around 20 thousand people about 30 or 40 miles from fukishima and they were receiving more radiation than an abandoned ghost town in Chernobyl
When the wind turbines are old and no longer efficient or beyond economic repair they can easily be dismantled and the ground returned to what it was before, with nuclear you have toxic radioactive waste for thousands of years…. go figure

Bill, you sound quite knowledgeable about these things. With regard to levels of science and research funding, the recent “HM Treasury – Country and Regional Analysis 2013? states that total UK expenditure on science and technology for 2012-13 is £3599 million, but the tables indicate that £305.6 million (£282m indentifiable + £23.6m population share of non-identifiable) of that is spent in Scotland.

This (at 8.5% of the total) would be just above what we’d expect as a population share. But we are told that Scotland receives a hugely disproportionate amount of UK government Science funding. Do you think that this means that the analysis is missing something in this regard?

thanks Braco. I heard the following Ïhave a letter here from the Head of Unit of the European Commission Secretariat General addressing exactly this question”i.e. negotiating from within the EU. Maybe I missed the point the MSM are making but he didn’t seem to claim the Scottish Government had been the recipient.

I found over the years that trying to explain some of the economic figures re tax collected and what we get back can be a bit difficult for some to understand. I had an elderly chap stop me when I mentioned percentages. He could not grasp the meaning of percentages. Breaking it down to very simple terms can make a difference. Don’t blind people with Billions here and billions less coming back.
The figures in the table are clear – I would now say to someone. ‘For every pound sent to Westminster we only get 70 pence back. Now multiply that by several millions and you can see why we are a net contributor.’

The BBC reports that:‘Two elite training centres set up to help British Olympic swimming hopefuls are to close at the end of the year.
The Intensive Training Centres (ITCs) in Swansea and Stirling will shut after governing body British Swimming’s Olympic budget for Rio 2016 was cut.’

So: a cut, two Centres closed. What is left? Well, ‘…bases in Loughborough and Bath, which house more elite swimmers, are safe’.

That’s the way the UK is set up! For anything under London/south of England control, if you’re far from that ‘hub’, you’ll be way down the queue for any benefit, and first in line for cut-backs and closures. The Union dividend!

Bill – Common Services frame work would be impossible. The only way is using EU Directives to ar least ensure safety and compliance with regulatory requirements. The UK ‘common services’ is a product of a shared landmass ,education,cultural, regulatory and language through the years. I do prefer the mirad of ‘cultures’ in europe and would regard the creation of a homogenous regime or culture to facilitate a common framwork as a step backwards. Which is as it currently stands seems to relate more to making outsourcing public services easier more than anything.

sorry turnip ghost i was unable to continue reading that bbc article as what i did read was utter bullshit. For example they mention the national debt but don’t bother to mention the assets of the uk which we would inherit and which would cut our share of the debt significantly. The article also implied we would be negotiating our way in to the eu implying at some point we’d be outside of it. Then it mentioned teamGB which most sensible people don’t give hoot about.

Bill‘At present the EU’s single market has removed the majority of technical barriers in some areas, but in other areas (particularly services)’

Can you clarify what you mean by ‘Services’ , it is a bit vague

If you mean regarding Accounting or Engineering, that would not be a problem, as professional bodies usually have reciprocal agreements within the EU as a whole

A bit like the legal system in the UK, currently a lawyer trained in scots law will practice/work solely in Scotland . If they want or need to practice/work in England then they are required to do ‘conversion’ and learn the additional components to be competent . It doesn’t stop them from working in England, but it is a requirement due to the differences.

But in the whole there is free trade across Europe with no barrier what so ever, including that for food stuffs. So someone sending goods to Birmingham or Leeds, finds it just as easy when sending to Milan or Paris. There is no hindrance at all

I had a look at the crossword. The clue for 2 down is ‘Gaelic shallow water’, four letters, of which, according to other clues, the first letter is T and the last is A.
Despite being a Gaelic speaker, I could not think of a noun for ‘shallow water’. I reckoned the compiler was thinking of ‘tana’, which is an adjective meaning ‘thin’. ‘Uisge tana’ could be used for ‘shallow water’.
But why did the compiler think that an adjective is a noun? Because he/she doesn’t have Gaelic, but being a ‘proud Scot’, that was, of course, no barrier to dragging the language into BT publicity for that extra wee bit of Scottishness. I suppose there must be a few, but I don’t know of any Gaelic-speakers who are going to vote ‘No’.

Herald today
Why is john Major, stirring up racial trouble, bad mouthing and accusing SNP of non existent racial slurs against the English. You obviously believe the rubbish generated in your UK press and media which is different to the bile we get served up hear in poor we Scotia. If you can maybe enlighten me which anti English statements were made, by whom and when?
Apology would be appreciated. Retraction in the papers would be appreciated!

1 in the crossword should be Act’s (plural) not ‘Act’.Also,Act’s aren’t laws they are Statutes.And even then it should be Treaty.Westminster cant use domestic statute to settle an international situation.International stuff is under the jurisdiction of international law.

A good example of a service industry is the insurance business (everything from motor insurance to pensions). The EU has been trying to establish a single market in this area for decades, but every country has a plethora of different regulations and customs, some of which are there for good reason, and some not. In theory it ought to be possible for a German driver to ring up say Direct Line in the UK and get a quote, but in practice it’s not worth Direct line’s time to assemble the necessary expertise and data and comply with German rules. It’s much easier just to set up or buy a German subsidiary. And if (as I believe to be the case) the German market is a lot less competitive, the parent company would have to decide whether it was worth trying to undercut the market or not – and it’s invariably not.

Of course the big insurers – AXA or Zurich and others – are multinationals and operate in most European countries, but do so as separate businesses (AXA – France e.g), each complying with the local jurisdiction’s rules. And until all those rules are harmonised and made the same for all countries – a near impossible task – there can’t be a true single market

Thanks to the SNP Scottish gov and generous benefactors, Aberdeen now has an Olympic size swimming Pool. So does Edinburgh, Glasgow? which are being used for the Commonwealth Games. Many Olympic swimmers have come from NE Scotland. The Scottish gov has established a Centre for Sports at Herriot Watt Uni.

It is possible that something can be done for funding at Stirling. Scottish lottery monies were used disproportionately for the Olympics. There have been complaints that Scottish contenders are forced to move south or lose out on UK funding.

Some folk are swallowing this Project Fear shite.
I was speaking to someone today that is voting No because of the border posts and guards. At the moment, he can make a day trip to visit his son and grandchildren in Newcastle. He is convinced that Indy will make that impossible as a day trip. He wasn’t interested in any of my answers, as he was taking no chances.

Scotland relationship/Union with Westminster/the rest of the UK is totally different from EU membership and relationship between member state. It is like comparing Chalk and Cheese, Apples and Pears. Westminster receives most of Scottish taxes, sets tax rates etc. Then decides how it is divi back. It takes decisions without consultation, without openness. Scotland outvoted 10 to 1.

EU membership agrees a relatively small contribution, for access to multiple benefits, markets and agreements. In the UK case 1/100 th. (one hundredth %). £7Billion of a spend of £700Billion.

creigs1707repeal I have saved a copy of your response, and may use it for undecideds I meet through work, if that’s ok with you; it’s written in an extremely clear style that gives a lot of food for thought for anyone thinking the status quo is ok or perhaps a few more powers would be nice i.e. a LOT of people.

Ahhhh…thank God. Friday!
It has been one long week, and I have only caught up with events at 10pm each day or on my phone when I had a quiet moment.

To be honest, when I review the week, it has gone from one of trepidation to being pretty good. It’s been not too bad!
I was on tenderhooks on Tuesday for the launch of the White Paper, and as expected, some folk hee-hawed at me about it, but I only gave them one simple message. ‘Vote ‘No’ and expect austerity measures that will make you weep! You’ll wish in the end that you had voted ‘Yes’. A £1000 down apparently if we vote ‘Yes’ …well, tell me, you have kids, don’t you? …well, get ready to pay 9 Grand a year for their university fees if we vote ‘No”

However, I caught the tail end of John Swinney winning the argument with Johann Lamont on Wednesday night on BBC2 (in surprisingly, one of her better performances. If only she could make eye contact with John, then she would have come across as someone who wanted to debate. However, she refused to look at him when she questioned him, and that just showed to everyone, that she has a real, REAL, hatred of the SNP! Many people will have noticed that! Whereas this night, she tried to control her contempt, and thus soften her voice, it was her body language that let her down). She fairly fizzed when John pointed out that the Labour Party were determined to cut Scotland block grant …and she couldn’t deny it! A belter from John!

Then I saw the Rev’s clip of Jurassic Park! Then I watched the recorded event (thanks to my wife).

Bloody hell!!! Talk about a scourging. No messing with Nicola. I think she and Angela Merkel would get on like a house on fire if they ever got together!
Jeezo! I thought Carmichael was going to burst into tears at one point. He is definitely out of his depth. And for the first time, any DK’s would now hear properly, from the horses’ mouth (or backside if you wish) that there are no new powers if you vote ‘No’, that 100,000 bairns will be driven into poverty, that he won’t help to keep the Type-26 in Govan and that he is quite willing to force a vengeful Tory government on Scotland if we vote ‘No’. Major wake-up call to all ‘No’s’ and DK’s!!! Brilliant!

Yesterday, we get some guff from a the Spanish Prime Minister ‘hinting’ Scotland won’t be in the EU. My first thought was, ‘Well, you better enjoy eating olives, because, you’ll not be getting any access to our fishing waters!’ But as we all found out, it was just made up mince from BT, and it turns out the Spanish chap wasn’t really interested in Scotland.

Then this morning (and bizarrely), I read in the Scotsman, that Mark Carney of the BoE is very willing to speak to the Scottish Government about currency union. Poor Darling …he must have choked on his coffee and toast at breakfast. Talk about being hung out to dry. ‘You can’t share the currency!’ and then the head of the BoE says the opposite. He is willing for Scotland to share Sterling in a currency union! It seems, the ‘proper economists’ (not Darling …he’s a lawyer), do have a brain, and do want to talk. Brilliant again!! Finally, sensible people, acting sensibly, talking sensibly! Excellent!!

I think this has turned into a pretty good week! From the hoo-ha on Tuesday with the British media and the Unionist politicians all foaming at the mouth, I think people in Scotland are slowly becoming aware; that there is an alternative future (compared to one of extreme austerity if they vote ‘No’ – Cheers Carmichael, your tanking on Wednesday is now so famous, that everyone is talking about it …and even to the reasons why, you took a tanking! Excellent!!).
I think the gap between Yes and No may have dropped from 9 points down to a good 7 or 6 (…or possibly even 5 !!)
We will find out at some point in the near future…

Hi Major,
I’m just about to watch that! The wife is away to a Zumba party (Christmas really starts early!), and so, she had taped me that too! A quick shower, get the dinner on, and then QT.

Major. On a wee side note …me and DonDeefLugs are going out for a couple of drinks and a meal next Saturday if you fancy it! (just a wee catch up. Nothing serious. All welcome). Will post on the WoS facebook page during the week if others fancy a few hours catching up and just having a little political discussion!

Slightly O/T – and I ‘ve only had 1 glass of wine but do we need to keep and eye on all these nice comments coming out from the papers, an eye on a totally inept SoS for Scotaland, an eye on the Anas Sarwars bedroom tax fiasco. Are there works of black art involved basically to scare the No’s into working harder, putting the fear into them instead of us. Its the Carmichael conumdrum – this man is so inept its as if its meant. Watch out for more nice things being said just in case. Might be miles off the mark ( and hope I am ) but they’re losing and maybe possibly changing tact

JLT – I’m not sure how you get from Mark Carney’s statement that he’s “very willing to talk to the Scottish Government about currency union” to your assertion that “he is willing for Scotland to share Sterling in a currency union”. Personally, I’m very willing to talk to anybody about anything, but that doesn’t mean to say that I’ll necessarily end up agreeing with them.

I tuned into Reporting Scotland tonight (its been a while) in the off chance they were going to cover the story of the BOE governor agreeing on currency discussions with the SG and give it as much coverage as they have the currency scare stories this week. Obviously no such luck but they did run a story on the Type 45 Destroyer, HMS Defender returning to Glasgow after 9 months at sea. There it was sailing down the Clyde when the BBC cameras zoomed in on the flag flying at the ship’s rear – a big St George’s cross with a small union jack in the corner, WTF is that all about? I mean a vessel built, assembled, launched in ,and now returning to, Glasgow, at least a wee Saltire in the background to the union jack would surely be far more apt…

When a ship enters foreign waters they would normally fly the flag of that territory called a courtesy flag as a sign of respect and friendship.
Maybe the captain of HMS Defender thought there is no need for the Royal navy to show friendship or respect to Scotland. Although it is entirely possible the BBC chose not to film it.

I think the point is that Mr Carney’s intervention somewhat contradicts the rabid assertions of John Major, Alistair Carmichael, Alistair Darling and others that a currency agreement would be ‘unlikely’ (or out of the question, depending on which papers you read). I mean if it was really either of those things then why bother, unless he’s just a trolling timewaster.

Fifty-year-old documents that have finally been transferred to the National Archive show that bonfires were built behind diplomatic missions across the globe as the purge – codenamed Operation Legacy – accompanied the handover of each colony.

The declassified documents include copies of an instruction issued in 1961 by Iain Macleod, colonial secretary, that post-independence governments should not be handed any material that “might embarrass Her Majesty’s [the] government”…

Unfortunately Iain there are quite a lot of Gaelic speakers that intend to vote No.
I used to attend a Gaelic conversation class until last year but got so sick of the native speakers that were unionists among them that I couldn’t stomach it any more and just didn’t go back.
Being asked to translate the phrase:
‘What do you think of independence? Oh, I think it’s better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know’, and watching them all translating it in turn without even a murmur sickened me.
I asked them what they thought William Wallace’s answer would be to that question and nobody said a thing.

There are of course many native Gaelic speakers who will be voting Yes, among them the famous musician Fergie MacDonald who has released a single called ”Yes is the vote for Bonnie Scotland” but they should be 100% behind the independence campaign and I am disgusted to say they are not.

RB, I am a pure Townie – Glasgow-born, now in an Ayrshire town, but I’ve never ever lived in the ‘country’.

Right now, as a (very) mature student, I’m learning about the Clearances, and the work of poets and writers like MacDiarmid, Gunn, Shepherd, Grassic Gibbon etc. I was born in ‘Scotland’, and I’m a ‘writer’, but I know so little about these people, and their work, it makes me very, very ashamed. It also makes me feel a wee bit resentful, jealous, that I didn’t have that ‘idyllic’ childhood. Aye, they always seemed to be ‘poverty-stricken’ in the Gunn/LGG novels, but we were just as poor in the cities – it would’ve been more enriching, and certainly nicer, to be poor in a place where you could hunt trout and salmon in your free hours.

But – to hear that real Gaels are inclined to vote ‘No’?

That, to me, is truly shocking. I hope it’s not true, and if it is true? I hope they’ll change their minds.

Juteman says
“I’m hoping he is simply dottled, and doesn’t speak for every older gentleman!

I even described the Northern Ireland border to him, but he was having none of it.”

Every so ofter (not every day) I send an email to a work colleague to mull over such as the terrible sight of the tweet asking for toys for the foodbank and she will respond almost immediately with a NO in caps, the last one was a no after about 15 minutes,
I suspect the next one will get no response, interestingly I hear her talk to the others (less informed and younger) in out team and trying to persuade them to vote no, however in spite of the usual banter the others had nothing whatever to say to me about my email, I really think that email struck home, (usually its something like oh no john not again).

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